About
The climate crisis continues to disproportionately impact First Nations, Metis, and Inuit (FNMI) Peoples across Turtle Island and worldwide. Some of the major issues faced are threats to reserve lands, food sovereignty, and access to traditional employments. In Canada, the burden of harms caused by climate change have been placed largely on FNMI youth as they are uniquely both the future and current traditional caretakers and land defenders of Turtle Island, a responsibility that can take a significant toll on the mental health of FNMI youth. Yet FNMI youth perspectives are rarely included in scholarly literature, research, or decision-making on environmental policy.
This project extends findings from a climate crisis pilot project carried out by Waakebiness Institute for Indigenous Health (Ontario Canada) and the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research (NWT Canada) with Indigenous community partners (including 2Spritis of the First Nation, Institute for Circumpolar Health Research, All My Relations Centre, Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, and more) from across Canada. This project responds to the emergent need for the inclusion and empowerment of Indigenous youth, especially 2Spritied, transgendered, and street involved youth, perspectives on the ongoing climate crisis and investigates its impacts on FNMI youth mental health to generate solutions to address and end the mental health crisis such as addictions, anxiety disorders, depression, and suicide along with policy solutions to end environmental genocide.
A mixed method approach of qualitative and survey data was used as driven by local and regional community partners in Ontario, the NWT, and nationally to gather data with youth to develop, implement, and evaluate mental health programming aimed at youth mental wellness. FNMI leadership and data governance frameworks were created by the community partner, Elders, and youth. Results include themes for solutions for mental health services and policies for climate crisis remediation to provide calls to action to remove barriers at individual and system levels for improved mental health outcomes for FNMI youth.
Next steps for the project include a national impact assessment (2025-2029), implementation and evaluation of land based youth mental health programs in BC, Manitoba, NWT, and Ontario based on the initial data results, and critical policy documents to change the systems that underpin both mental health services and climate genocide.